Image: New York Stock Exchange
"Containing the spread of disinformation, especially for a brand or public figure under attack, is a race against time," said Jean-Claude Goldenstein, founder of CREOpoint and developer of a business intelligence technology that aims to curb the fallout from fake news.
One case in point: A video surfaced in January purportedly showing a Tesla "self-driving vehicle" slam into a robot prototype at CES, a consumer electronics show heavily attended by tech reporters from across the globe. It wasn't long before the video went viral, with a number of outlets running headlines claiming "Self-driving Tesla car kills robot."
Or was it?
Some experts in the disinformation field suspect the caper was not any kind of bot promotion but rather a deliberate attack on the American stock market by "foreign actors" trying to undermine consumer acceptance and trust in self-driving cars and drive down stock prices in companies that develop them.
The incident drew international attention, and by Monday morning Tesla shares had slipped. The company's chief executive, Elon Musk, questioned the media interest, tweeting on Tuesday: "Over a million combustion engine (it's right there in the name!) car fires per year & thousands of deaths, but one Tesla car fire with no injuries gets biggest headlines. Why the double standard? This is a real question."
"The level of sophistication used is making it more challenging," said Glenn Hall, global chief editor of Dow Jones Newswires. "We see a lot of efforts to move the market with information that is fake."
Earlier this year, some outlets, including Financial Times and CNBC.com, were duped by a letter purporting to come from Larry Fink, the chief executive of the investment firm BlackRock, who typically sends out an annual note about the company's efforts around pro-social investing. The hoax also involved several fake BlackRock Twitter handles and a sophisticated website made to look like the company's own.
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